Conquering the Dark Forces
In Vilna, there lived a Jewish shoemaker named Mottel. He worked hard and barely made enough to live, yet he never complained, and was happy with his lot. One day, however, his fate changed. A distant relative passed away and left him a huge inheritance, so he became an extremely wealthy man.
He rose in status and made arrangements for his son to marry the daughter of his town’s rabbi. There was no end to his joy! All the townspeople attended the wedding. One of them was a jealous, narrow-minded man who held a grudge against him for his sudden success.
In view of the townspeople, this man stood in front of Mottel, took off his sandal, presented it to him and asked with a smile: "What do you think can be done with this damaged sandal? Can it be repaired? And if there is a point in repairing it, how much do you think the repair will cost me?"
Mottel was humiliated, he turned pale in the face, his body shook, and he fell to the ground and fainted. A great commotion broke out at the scene. A doctor was called and tried to revive him, but to no avail he pronounced him dead.
This story reached the ears of Rabbi Israel of Salant. He was deeply shocked and said: "I am going to establish the Musar movement so that something like this never happens among us again!"
This folk tale is often cited in association with the founding of the Musar movement in the middle of the 19th century by Rabbi Israel of Salant or, as he is also commonly known, Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883.)
This folk tale, as nice as it is, was probably not Salanter’s inspiration for the founding of the movement. His inspiration in fact came from his teacher, Rabbi Yosef Zundel, who was a student of the Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin.
What is Musar? In modern Hebrew, the word means ethics. However, in ancient Hebrew and the Tanach, it means correction and learning. It comes from the root for educating, but interestingly, it could also be derived from the root words for binding and suffering.
In the Jewish historical context, the Lithuanian Yeshiva established a harsh learning structure of Torah based on this teaching. The focus was strict human behavior and the wellbeing of the human soul and psyche. This led to the addition of Middot, or Jewish virtues.
Before we get deeper into the Musar movement, let’s look at our Torah portion this week, Behar - Behukotai. The portion of Behar gives us some of the most important socio-economic commandments, specifically those detailing the years of Shmita/Sabbatical and Yovel/Jubilee, the 7th and 50th years respectively. The land is left to rest for a year, debt is forgiven, ownership of the land is reverted to the original owners, and slaves are set free.
Behar ends with the following verse:
אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַ֣י תִּשְׁמֹ֔רוּ וּמִקְדָּשִׁ֖י תִּירָ֑אוּ אֲנִ֖י יְהֹוָֽה׃ {פ}
“You shall keep My sabbaths and sanctify My sanctuary; I am the Lord.”
The Talmud in Yavamot 6a states, referring to this verse:
יָכוֹל יְהֵא בִּנְיַן בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ דּוֹחֶה שַׁבָּת — תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״אֶת שַׁבְּתוֹתַי תִּשְׁמוֹרוּ וּמִקְדָּשִׁי תִּירָאוּ״ — כּוּלְּכֶם חַיָּיבִין בִּכְבוֹדִי.
“One might have thought that the building of the Temple should override Shabbat; therefore, the verse states: “You shall keep My Shabbatot and revere My sanctuary,”
Our sages put forth a warning. When one engages in an intense spiritual task (such as building the Temple), one might neglect the mitzvot, feeling that they are so close to God, that it is unnecessary to observe it.
In his book Nefesh Hachaim, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (1749 – 1821) warns of the exact same thing, stating that the intense attachment to God which comes before learning Torah, such as the approach of the Hasidim, might have fit our forebearers prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, but it should have stopped there.
In a different place in the book, Chaim quotes a Midrash about the amount of a wheat additive appropriate for a sacrifice to exemplify that only a small pinch of spiritual work is required to be added to Torah study.
The revolution of Rabbi Israel Salanter was the addition of correcting the human soul more than just a small pinch.
In part, the addition of Musar practice to the Lithuanian Yeshiva was a response to the threat of the Haskalah - Jewish Enlightenment, which opened new avenues of learning and weakened the Yeshiva’s narrow approach to knowledge, which was only focused on Torah. In part, it was a response to the vibrant and emotionally moving Hasidut movement in neighboring Poland.
But the most fascinating and groundbreaking addition of the Musar movement, was the psychological analysis of the human mind, and the new methods offered to improve it, which were very much ahead of their time.
Several decades before Sigmund Freud’s important writings were published, Salanter toyed with ideas which, after Freud, we would call the unconscious.
כִּי הֲלֹא לִמּוּד הַמּוּסָר הוּא בְּתוֹר רְפוּאָה לְמַחֲלַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ. וּבְהֶכְרֵחַ צָרִיךְ שֶׁתְּקַדֵּם בְּקֶרֶב לֵבַב הָאָדָם… וְלָזֶה גּוּפָהּ הֲלֹא נִדְרָשׁ חֶשְׁבּוֹנוֹת רַבִּים מֵחֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ.
“The study of Musar is like a cure for a mental illness… For this, a human needs a lot more than the accounting of what they are aware of…”
אַהֲבַת הָאָדָם לְצֶאֱצָאָיו כֵּהִים הֵמָּה, וְכִמְעַט בְּרֹב הָעִתִּים אֵינָם נִרְגָּשִׁים לְהָאָדָם עַצְמוֹ, וּבְהִתְעוֹרְרוּת קְטַנָּה תִּתְלַהֵב לְאֵשׁ בּוֹעֶרֶת, תַּאֲוַת הָאָדָם הֵמָּה הַכֵּהִים אֲשֶׁר בְּלִי הִתְעוֹרְרוּת מָה, כִּמְעַט אֵינָם נִרְגָּשִׁים, וְלָזֹאת גָּדוֹל כֹּחָם לִמְשֹׁל בָּאָדָם:
“A person’s love of his descendants is a dark force; usually, the person does not even sense it. But with the slightest provocation, it blazes up into a fiery flame. Human desires are shadowy; without some stimulus, they are hardly felt, yet their power is so great that they rule over the person.”
Salanter suggested that human behavior is guided by the “dark forces” (the unconscious). In order to access these dark forces and influence them, one requires a special kind of work. It is not enough to be aware of their existence. This hard work comes through persistence, daily repetition and focus.
For example, one begins by identifying “a midah,” a virtue which is problematic for them. Let’s say - pride. They then find a relevant passage in Musar. It could be Behaya’s “Duties of the Heart” or Luzzatto’s Mesilat Yesharim, and then repeat the passages every day before studying Torah again and again with intention, sometimes with cries and sometimes with musicality. The process should be able to “penetrate” into the “dark forces” and influence them.
In Salanter’s famous “Iggeret HaMussar” (letter of Musar), he states that people find it easy to follow mitzvot such as keeping kosher or Shabbat, but can almost never keep mitzvot relating to lashon hara, or to clean and honest business dealings… This is why the work of daily Musar is important.
Influenced by Salanter’s Musar movement, many new yeshivas were formed, still exist today, and make up a large portion of the Lithuanian sect of Orthodox Judaism.
I find it very fascinating that Musar is also very popular today among non–orthodox as well as non-observant Jews.
The work of improving human behavior and psyche is, of course, forever important. However we should also remember that this movement supports rigorous learning of the Torah, and a dedicated life of observance.
It is an arduous process that requires a continuous, unending commitment. In Salanter own words: “A person is like a bird: They can fly ever so high, but if their wings stop flapping, they will inevitably fall down.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ye'ela Rosenfeld
